This is a formal system of studies for all young gentlemen seeking a career and success as senior military officers.
While gifted amateurism and the minor gentry's natural leadership and impressive shouting can do wonders at regimental level, for higher level commands a military education is necessary. There are matters of co-operation between the different arms of infantry, cavalry and artillery; there are considerations of supply, intelligence, military engineering, politics and grand strategy. They are not trivial subjects, and require some study if they are to be useful to a general officer. A military syllabus approaches these matters in an organised way, and sets out a programme of study for a gentlemen to undertake. At the very least, the reading list will keep the less cerebral officers from attaining high rank!

The development of a system of military education aided the creation of a centralised army staff, as it produced the professional officers needed to carry out the necessary duties. In many countries, professionalism was often viewed with deep suspicion, because it challenged the idea of nobility and propertied classes having an automatic right to command. Talent and proper training could trump the settled and natural order of things!